A Different Story
by Someone the World Forgot
Summary: They all knew her as the bubbly, cheerful, intelligent little girl, and loved her. She thought they forgot about them and didn't care. On each side, it was a different story, and the other never knew about it until it was too late. Please note: Trigger Warning. All rights to Rick Riordan.


**_TRIGGER WARNING: Please note that the story below contains elements of suicide. Reader discretion is advised._**

* * *

 **Hey guys, it's been a while. Sorry. Life got busy; I probably will be uploading one more story and I won't be uploading any more. Mini life update for y'all who may or may not care: I'm in uni now, and it's amazing! I'm studying Arts cause I can't do science, and that's a good thing too because I have less classes to do than Science yay.**

 **Anyway, this was written two years ago, when I was in a very dark place with myself. I never did consider suicide, but I definitely do remember the feeling of feeling unwanted. I was going to release it on September 10, which is Suicide Prevention Day, but I think it shouldn't just be a single day, rather it should be every day. If you o** **r know someone who feels suicidal, please talk to a trusted adult, or go online to talk to someone. People really do love you and appreciate you for who you are, even if they don't show it all the time.**

 **\- Kiren**

* * *

 **Principium**

Walking down the hallways of her high school, she could pass for a normal fourteen-year-old girl. She had friends, had an older brother and sister (whom she frequently argued with), obsessed over boys and fangirled over many things. She would frequently go to the mall with her friends, and would play video games with her brother and/or sister (if they weren't in the middle of another argument, that is).

She was a straight-A student and well-liked by her teachers. She excelled at track and was frequently praised by her PE teacher for her outstanding achievements.

She seemed like a normal, happy girl. She seemed to have everything in her life together.

She seemed, to everyone, that she'd be the one most likely to succeed and become well-known in her adult life. Thought that she'd marry and have beautiful children, have a lovely home, a loving husband, a wonderful and successful career, and that she'd die old and happy of the life she'd lived.

But what all her teachers dreamed, what her friends and family thought would happen, was not to be.

In fact, it was to be the opposite.

* * *

 **Week Five**

She stared hard at the math questions in front of her. They blurred before her eyes, the numbers and letters seemingly transforming and distorting on the page. She didn't understand it. Any of it.

 _Just this once_ , she told herself. _Ask the teacher just this once. I_ need _to pass this class._

She started to put her hand up, but her pride caused it to fall. Cursing internally, she told herself, "Just this once. Just put your pride away … just. This. Once."

Counting to ten silently in front of her, her eyes shut tight, Hazel threw her hand up in the air. "Mrs. Leer! I need help."

To others, it just sounded like she didn't understand the math homework and need help deciphering the questions.

But to her, it meant a whole different thing.

* * *

 **Week Four**

Hazel Levesque turned the book around in her hand, to look at the title.

 _I Was Here_ , by Gayle Foreman.

A story about a girl whose best friend committed suicide.

The girl couldn't understand why. Her best friend was happy. She was loved. Meg had gotten a scholarship to her dream university.

But the girl kept asking, "Why? Why? Why? I don't understand. Can't you see we're all shattered by your decision?"

The girl couldn't understand, but Hazel did. "I understand you," she whispered. "Completely."

* * *

 **Week Three**

The following night, she found herself sitting at her desk, the browser on her laptop open to Facebook. Realizing that her friends were on, she clicked on their names, one by one. Three separate chat windows opened.

She headed for the one on the left first.

 _Hey_ , she wrote to her friend. Gwen _, you still awake?_

 _Yeah._

 _Wanna talk?_

Gwen replied a few minutes later. _Nope, sorry, about to go to bed lol. Bye_.

Hazel bit her lip. _Bye_.

She chose the middle chat. Percy Jackson.

 _Hi, Perce_.

He responded instantly. _Hi Hazel! What's up?_

 _Idk. I'm bored._ Hazel ran a hand through her curls, a trait she picked up from Percy.

 _Lol that's cool :P I'm going to go stay at Annabeth's for a while, though, so I better get going. See you on Monday!_

"Bye," whispered Hazel.

 _No one wants to talk to me_.

With that, she turned the computer off and spun away from her desk, the back of her chair pressed against the wooden side of the table.

She hated that feeling. That feeling of being unloved, someone nobody wanted to talk to. She knew that she was being irrational, seeing it was almost midnight and normal people were asleep, but those dark thoughts would not leave her head.

With a sigh, she turned back to her computer, booted it up again, and began writing a poem.

* * *

 **Week Two**

Being the highly analytical and tactical girl she was, Hazel knew that if she was rude to people, changed herself in ways she knew her father—or anyone she cared about, really—wouldn't approve, and became the kind of girl nobody liked, that people would leave her alone and forget about her presence. "After all, if I push people away and make them dislike me, they won't miss me as much when I'm gone … right?" she asked herself.

And that's exactly what she did.

* * *

"What did you do to yourself?!" thundered her father as she walked into the door of the di Angelo home that Wednesday afternoon. He rushed up to her.

"Arriving home, of course." She nonchalantly raised an eyebrow, looking unruffled.

"But—but—" His eyes ran over her frantically, taking in her appearance.

"Oh, this?" she asked, her voice devoid of any emotion. Hazel rolled up her sleeve and showed her father the tattoo she'd gotten of Ryan Seacrest on her left forearm. "I was bored, and I wanted a change." Seeing her father's shock, she added, "Yes, I know I'm underaged." She rolled her eyes. "I got it at Nero's Tattoo Parlour. Meg's father owns the place and he did it 50% off, no questions asked."

" _Meg_?!" her father repeated, incredulous. "You don't like her! She's a bully, a liar, manipulative …"

She shrugged. "She's cool now. We're friends, you see, and I don't like how you talk about my friends."

He decided to drop the subject on Margaret McCaffrey and continued to stare at his daughter. He seemed stunned at the way she so easily talked back and countered him. "Your … hair …"

"Oh, that." Hazel had dyed her hair white, a shocking contrast to her dark skin. Her long, luscious, curly locks were gone, replaced by an inch of fuzz. Emblazoned at the back of her head was a green-and-black skull. She spun around in a circle, showing of her hair tattoo. "It'll grow back in a month or so, but it's cool, isn't it?"

She turned back to stare at her father. All the colour had drained out of his already-pale face, causing him to appear very ghost-like. He seemed to be in shock, his mouth opening and closing, much like a fish's.

"Skull …" Her father only seemed capable of murmuring one-word replies now.

"Nico wears skulls all the time and you don't mind," Hazel told him. "Why should it be any different for me?"

"Clothes …"

Hazel looked down at herself, her golden eyes rimmed with heavy black eyeliner. Ripped black jeans, leather jacket, a silver bracelet on her wrist, gloves with the fingers exposed, and a bracelet decorated with skulls. She looked like a cross between Thalia Grace and her half-brother, Nico di Angelo. She told her father so.

"Rings …"

Perched delicately on her fingers were rings of different shapes and sizes, with skulls and spikes.

Hazel turned her hand over, admiring them. "They're cool, aren't they?"

Finally, her father seemed to be able to form a coherent sentence, the shock finally draining away. "Why, Hazel? Why?" he asked. "Please tell me this is a joke, Hazel. Surely you aren't serious."

She shook her head. "No. I felt tired of seeing the same old me. I wanted a change, Dad. Surely you'd want me to be happy." She purposely lifted her arms over her head, giving the illusion to stretch her arms, promptly causing her shirt to lift up. Underneath, a piercing glinted, a single metal rod penetrating her belly button.

The corners of her father's mouth turned down. The shock was over, and he did not react to her piercing. "I expected better of you, Hazel. I didn't raise you to become a hooligan. My sweet girl, you have such talent. Please don't throw it away. Please, Hazel," he begged. "If there's anyone troubling you at school or anything, please, please, tell Maria and me. We want to help you."

Seeing the disappointment in her father's eyes was almost enough for her to call off her entire plan. _Almost_. Not quite.

Hazel pressed her lips firmly closed and shook her head.

He sighed. "Very well," said Pluto, and left.

"Just one more week," she told herself once she was alone by the front door. "One more."

* * *

 **Week One**

If the depression was a black cloud, hovering above her, always in her thoughts, it no longer would be a cloud. It'd be a fog, and envelope of black. There was no light anywhere, anymore. The fog was too thick.

She couldn't take it anymore.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

 _At least no one will miss me_.

And that, that was when the knife clattered onto the kitchen floor, stained a deep, dark red with the blood of a fourteen-year-old girl named Hazel Marie Levesque-diAngelo.

* * *

 **Finis**

They buried, her, a girl gone too soon.

Her death had changed everyone.

Her brother would sit in her room for hours, wishing her home, convincing himself that she was just out with friends.

Her sister couldn't bear to look at herself in the mirror without seeing Hazel's eyes looking back at her.

Her father disappeared into himself because if he couldn't recognise something was wrong with his daughter, what kind of father was he?

Her friends left her locker as she'd left it, because at least Hazel could still remain with them somehow.

Her best friends regretted it every single day when they didn't talk to her a second more, because that was one second they never were going to get back.

Her PE teacher retired her track number and began to use her story to save others.

Because even if he couldn't save her, he'd damn well save the others.

* * *

 **This normally is not my writing style. As said previously, please talk to someone if you are going through things, or even talk to me if you'd like. I was a certified peer counselor at my high school and had undergone training for counselling. My PM is always open, and even though you're all over the globe, I really do appreciate and value every single one of you.**

 **\- K**


End file.
